1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manufacturing device of an electric wire with terminal and a manufacturing method of an electric wire with terminal for crimping a terminal fitting onto an end portion of an electric wire.
2. Description of Related Art
A manufacturing device of an electric wire with terminal having a top force and a bottom force opposing each other to crimp a terminal fitting onto an end portion of an electric wire, a press mechanism to caulk the terminal fitting by moving the top force and the bottom force closer or spaced apart, and a base member to support the press mechanism in a fixed state, is known in the related art (for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application (KOKAI) Nos. 8-315950 and 9-306629).
A typical example of a product using an electric wire with terminal is a wire harness. The wire harness is manufactured, for example, by crimping plural terminal fittings to one ends of plural electric wires in a one-to-one correspondence, and by pressure welding the other ends of these electric wires to an insulation displacement termination connector. There has been arising a need for a technique such that enables the manufacturing device of an electric wire with terminal as described above to automatically manufacture such a wire harness.
To address this need, it is proposed to provide a manufacturing device of an electric wire with terminal with a terminal crimping portion including the top force, the bottom force, and the press mechanism and fixed to the base member, a transportation device adopting a transfer method to transport an electric wire to the terminal crimping portion, an electric wire supply portion to supply an electric wire to the transportation portion, and an insulation displacement termination device to insulation displacement terminate an insulation displacement termination connector to an electric wire. The transportation device adopting the transfer method transports an electric wire linearly along a predetermined transportation direction. The electric wire supply device, the terminal crimping portion, and the insulation displacement terminating device are disposed along the transportation direction from the upstream side to the downstream side.
The terminal crimping portion is disposed adjacently to the transportation device generally in a direction orthogonal to the transportation direction so as not to interfere with transportation. Hence, the transportation device transports electric wires one by one in succession in the predetermined transportation direction, while guiding each electric wire to a terminal fitting crimping position in the terminal crimping portion by moving the electric wire in the direction orthogonal to the transportation direction. The transportation device may be configured to hold plural electric wires in parallel and transport them collectively.
The transportation device adopting the transfer method, however, moves the electric wire in both the transportation direction and the direction orthogonal to the transportation direction, and therefore has tendencies to become complicated in structure and to increase in size. This in turn increases the overall manufacturing device of an electric wire with terminal in size. In addition, in a case where the transportation device holds plural electric wires in parallel, the transportation device needs a function to move the plural electric wires independently to their corresponding positions, which further complicates the structure.
Moreover, in order to handle plural kinds of electric wires, plural terminal crimping portions corresponding to plural kinds of electric wires may be aligned along the transportation direction. In this case, the manufacturing device is increased further in size.
Furthermore, the need for a size reduction arises not only from a manufacturing device of an electric wire with terminal used to manufacture the wire harness, but also from all types of manufacturing device of an electric wire with terminal.